Recently, I needed to organize my pedals and cords for a quick setup and teardown situation. In my stack of remodeling leftovers I found a great base for an inexpensive yet really nice pedal board. Here is a PDF with the description, instructions and where you can get the materials! Have fun and send me ideas for improvements and pictures of what you build!
Christmas Blessings!
Mark
Bob Hazlett (morning teaching)
Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. – 1Cor 14:1
How to have the Word come though you. How to let God speak though your life.
Psalm 107 – Joseph was a prophetic commodities trader. God showed him the couple years of plenty followed by famine. Buy low and sell high.
How to hear the voice of God.
Formless, lack of form, chaos. God’s Word brings order.
Emptiness Lack of resource. The Word is the resource and substance.
Light to the darkness
Prophecy: the Word becoming flesh
If you believe, you belief will move you to action.
God’s Word creates opportunities where there was nothing. Substance is created and then ordered to facilitate the purpose of God.
You are God’s workmanship
Things were put in place for us us in advance, works prepared for us.
Fulfill today’s destiny first.
John 1:46-51
Dan Mohler (evening)
In love with God because He loved me. Then the next place is to BE Love.
He turns us from self-centeredness to God-centeredness and other-centeredness.
Job – truly loved God.
Selfishness is opposite of love.
Give up the lie that was never ours from the beginning.
Give up the things of the past, our sinful actions. That we regret those things shows we have turned. We have received forgiveness and been cleansed with the blood of Christ.
Renew your mind with the truth and don’t dwell on the past that the Lord forgave us for. It’s no longer on the inside, it is coming from the outside trying to get back in. Don’t give it the time of day.
Root ourselves in the Gospel of Christ.
Overcome evil with good.
Follow Jesus, be like Him.
As the Father sent Jesus, so He sends us.
Stop fighting the battle He already won and live in the identity if Christ, be ‘in Christ’
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be blameless and pure. He makes us right, righteous.
Predestined to be sons and daughters. Be sons band daughters. Receive His counsel and guidance, His love and good pleasure.
We are made by Him and we have purpose and good destiny.
Wake up and honor and embrace the Gospel.
In Him we have redemption – brought back or bought back so all our sins are removed.
Don’t lose or sell your identity.
The forgiveness destroys the work of sin so we can become sons and daughters.
He took our sin and took it to the cross, what was killing us (sin) is destroyed.
Romans 6: consider yourself dead to sin. The marks of sin are removed from us. Christ took them and gives us new life.
The Gospel gives us freedom. We are not guilty anymore because of Christ and the Gospel.
Don’t dwell in the place of the past. You are a new creation in Christ.
Receive it
Receive it
Receive it
Receive it
Receive it
Lead us into the manifestation of Love, Lord Jesus.
Tonight, I am bit still overtaken by Dan’s morning message. Todd sang a new song over us and I felt the need to be still in God’s presence. There is such great peace and rest in that place.
Todd spoke of purity from the place of his own personal testimony. I’ve heard Todd’s testimony a number of times yet there are always encouragements and challenges to my own walk of faith.
People had an opportunity to pray for people who had various illnesses among us. I think that is stretching for people. In the safe place of conference and community we learn how to minister to the world.
The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice – Psalm 97:1 NIV
For the last couple of days, the scripture from Psalm 97:1 keeps coming back to me. It originally came while I just played to the Lord with my guitar the other evening.
Today, as I was trying different chord lines and melodies, it occurred to me to invite other people to join me with their own melodies and chord lines. A picture came to mind of people from all over the world singing these words, worship embodied with their own unique song, instrument and voice.
Sing a beautiful song to the Lord 
Welcome to my new blog location on the WorshipTraining Campus!
The meaning of Ripples is taken from the waves that happen when a stone is thrown into a pool of still water. My life gets to be pretty still and calm until a rock gets thrown in, making waves in my life. New currents and waves can also come from sources of water. Different life events can cause these waves and currents in our lives and they bring us to the point of thinking deeply about life.
Similar to life is the little pool in my header picture. A tiny waterfall was pouring into a deep pool covered in leaves. The waves and the flow of water clear the surface so we can take stock of what is substantial and true versus what is fallen and dead debris.
The Essentials Courses, to me personally, are like that waterfall pouring into the pool. The Essential courses created waves and fresh current in my life. The new flow cleared fallen leaves from the surface of my calm, still pool of water. They challenged me to think deeply and to see more deeply of myself and of God.
One observation that comes to mind: I can see to the bottom of the pool of me. Of God, I can find no bottom or ending. He is the infinitely better pool to ponder the depths of…
To find some of these blog topics expressed musically, please also considering visiting my music related site at:
Blessings to all!
Mark
For: The Essentials Formation Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt
Moved by my Essentials classes and devotional calls, I set my alarm for 6:10am so I could watch the sunrise at 6:40am this morning. My ‘me’ has seen 55 Easter Sundays so far, some I remember more than others. This one felt special and while I can’t quite word it, the specialness of the day or should I say my awareness of it is being so impacted by my Christian worship community both local and online. We have all been on a quest, together, this year and now something beautiful is dawning on us.
The Paschal Mystery figures deeply in this morning for me. As the sun came up, my imagination drank in the accounts of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from all four Gospels. They took me back to a January morning, standing in a Jerusalem garden, by an empty tomb with folks from our worship ministry. At the same time, in was acutely aware of the birds singing all around me, the beauty of my wife’s flowers, the smell of the fresh cut grass. Somehow the moment of sunrise, silent in it’s coming, unstoppable in it’s moment, reminding us of the foundational moment of our faith, transcends all time. In a language all can hear and understand, it tells of a moment long ago, speaks to a present transformed life, and sings of a wonderful future yet to come.
Such a glorious, wonderful, amazing, mysterious Resurrection sunrise it was, is and is to be!
Happy Resurrection Sunday!
For: The Essentials Formation Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt
An Empowered Life:
It is finally Springtime and my thoughts are turning to the outdoors. Part of my Spring activities is taking my cabin-fevered, sit on the couch and watch it snow body and getting it ready for the fun of the warm outdoor seasons. When we restart our exercise programs there is the realization that we can’t do the same routine all the time. We need to vary the type of exercise we do so that we don’t overdo and more importantly, to keep our minds in the game. We need variety!
As we hit the third week of Essentials Formation, I felt moved to declare certain days more fit for certain spiritual and personal growth activities.
For quite a long time, our family declared Sundays as a family day. We formed a tradition to spend time together. Now, it seems, even with our children grown, Sundays is still a time of soaking in family. For us, the focus is a time of God and family….Earthy….The Grounded Life.
This week, I took a day to be inspired, to catch the wind of the Holy Spirit and what God has created for me to see, hear, smell, touch, read, ponder, so I will be stirred and moved to gather it up and creatively offer it back as worship and in thanks to God. While we should do this all time, I felt to take one day and make it special as an inspirational day. I wanted to do my best to remain more attentive than usual to the beauty of God’s Creation and the winds from God that blow across and into my life. This week, I especially noted the beauty of the night sky. With my son and our iPhones, we found planets, identified constellations, and said our goodbyes to one of our favorites (Orion with his puppies). Even now, I ponder the knowing Orion and the dogs will be back in the fall as beautiful and bright as ever. It makes me think of the majesty and timelessness of the God who created and orders the seasons. Windy……The Inspired Life.
Along the way, I set aside a special day, Wednesdays, to rest in and pray about the Beautitudes. Thursday is set in place to pray and meditate on missions. This week, following a Samaritan’s Purse prayer guide, I prayed for peace and stability in the Sudan, and for the Christians there.
I have not set a day for the empowered life quite yet. At the same time, I received emails from a missionary couple who are returning to Israel, a daughter of a pastor friend who is studying with YWAM in New Zealand, and I had breakfast with a pastor friend who with his family is picking up and moving to Nashville on the way to Israel. These are people who are all living an empowered life, obedient and living without fear in the provision and security of the Lord. There seems to be quite a few ‘empowered life’ champions in my life that are cheering me on. This next week, I will choose Monday or Tuesday to be specifically be more attentive to the call of the Holy Spirit to me, to be obedient to the tasks no matter the size, and to become vulnerable and expectant of the Lord already being in that place to bring His power to bear. Firey…..The Empowered Life.
It seems that I need to create an encouraging, physical reminder of my special weekdays where I focus especially on the Earth, Wind, Fire, and….. in my life, so my life is formed to a full expression of what God created me for. Just like a physical exercise plan, it is helpful for us to have a strategy and a holistic formation plan so that our lives have proper foundations, nourishment, inspiration, and passion. Then we can live the abundant life Jesus intends for us to have.
For: The Essentials Formation Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt
Experiencing inspiration is critical to our well being. Our lives cry out for inspiration, almost like being thirsty for water. We were made for catching the wind of inspiration. When inspiration is withheld from our lives, it stops us from growing and producing and influencing.
A first step in maintaining our inspirational health is to identify our sources of inspiration. What are the environments and actions that move us and excite us about life, especially Christian life. For me, activities like hiking, boating, fishing, camping, playing music, and creating make my heart go. Worship, reading and pondering Scripture, talking with others about God, playing games with my wife, playing with our puppies and digging in dirt are some others. I love a farm field, a lake in the late afternoon, a mountain trail, a quiet porch swing with a book, the beach. These are some of the activities and places where I am renewed and refreshed. From them I get the energy for discipleship and service.
A second step is to strategically place yourself in places or situations where you are regularly renewed by inspiration. Frequent places and activities that stir up our passion for life and God. This second step is a place where I need to do better. It seems I put off inserting inspirational times into my schedule. There is so much to accomplish so I plug in the inspirational moment when all else is completed for the day. Then instead of being inspired I simply fall asleep. I have to reclaim time daily to breathe in the inspired life on a regular schedule. Like exercise, for the most benefit, small inspirational retreats should be on a daily or semi-daily basis. One of my friends who was a professor at a local college used to write in his daily schedule, “researching fluid dynamics”. Hans would go for a swim almost everyday to recharge his inspirational batteries.
Finally, be spontaneously inspired. Be ready, at a moments notice, to catch the wind of unplanned inspiration. Yes, schedule those times where you are refreshed but also be aware of what God is providing for you at the moment. I might schedule a daily songwriting time but when God whispers an idea, I need to, if possible, follow that idea to see where it might lead. Sometimes spontaneity will put us in situations we are not skilled or prepared enough for our own comfort. We should still make a wise choice to participate in the opportunity God is putting before us.
Mark Grosz